Boehner pulls out of White House debt talks

A frustrated president calls leaders back to the negotiating table Saturday

 WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner abruptly broke off talks with President Barack Obama Friday night on a deal to cut federal spending and avert a threatened government default, sending compromise efforts into an instant crisis.

Within minutes, an obviously peeved Obama virtually ordered congressional leaders to the White House for a Saturday meeting on raising the nation's debt limit. "We've got to get it done. It is not an option not to do it," he declared.

"I expect them to have an answer in terms of how they intend to get this thing done in the course of the next week. The American people expect action," Obama said.

President Obama addresses the current state of US debt talks by announcing that House Speaker John Boehner has withdrawn from the negotiations. During the statement, Obama makes a strong challenge to Boehner to come up with a solution to avoid US defaults on owed debts.

"This was an extraordinary fair deal," said the president. "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."

He said Republicans need to ask themselves, "Can they say 'yes' to anything?"

"We have now run out of time," said Obama. "What we're not going to do is continue to play games and string this along," said the president. "I've been left at the altar now a couple of times."

He added, "I cannot believe that Congress would be that irresponsible that they would not pass a package to avoid a self inflicted wound."

Boehner, called his own news conference to respond to the president and accused Obama of "moving the goal posts" by demanding $400 billion in tax increases on top of about $800 billion in revenues that would have been reaped through a comprehensive rewrite of the tax code.  

"It's time to get serious ... if the White House won't get serious, we will," said Boehner.

"We've put plan after plan on the table ... never once did the president come to the table with a plan," said Boehner. "We were always pushing."

In a letter circulated to the House Republican rank and file, the speaker said he had withdrawn from the talks with Obama because "in the end, we couldn't connect." He said he would turn instead to negotiations with leaders of the Senate, which is controlled by majority Democrats.

House Speaker John Boehner addresses the current state of the US debt talks and responds to criticism voiced by President Obama.

The disconnect in the talks with the White House, Boehner said, was "not because of different personalities, but because of different visions for our country.

Following Friday evening's dualing news conferences, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement, "Speaker Boehner's adult moment is long overdue."

The talks had veered uncertainly for weeks, generating reports as late as Thursday that the two sides were possibly closing in on an agreement to cut $3 trillion in spending and add as much as $1 trillion in possible revenue while increasing the government's borrowing authority of $2.4 trillion.

That triggered a revolt among Democrats who expressed fears the president was giving away too much in terms of cuts to benefit programs for the elderly while getting too little by way of additional revenues.

Obama for the first time declined to offer assurances, when asked, that default would be avoided. He said he was consulting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner about what the consequences would be for Social Security recipients and others "if we default."

Later, he said he was confident the debt limit would be raised and default would be avoided.

For his part, Boehner said, "I'm confident that Congress can act next week."

As the Aug. 2 debt deadline approaches, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner are trying to revive an ambitious $4 trillion “grand bargain” deal that would include spending cuts, plus entitlement changes and increased tax revenues. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell and Mike Viqueira report, and U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., shares his insight.